A Birthday to Remember

26 – one year past a quarter of a century. It’s not my golden birthday. It’s not my 21^st birthday. It’s just a birthday where I am one year older than before. Some may say it’s ‘just my 26^th birthday’ but this year it wasn’t just my 26^th birthday – it was a day that nearly saved my organization. 

March hit Grey Face Rescue hard, and by hard I mean we nearly tripled our average monthly vetting expense. March alone off-set our vetting to nearly $4,000.00 which included 3 emergency surgeries. This hardship left me extremely stressed and so incredibly heartbroken as I felt as though my organization was crumbling before my eyes. I felt as though I was letting my team down and it broke my heart to think I let our dogs down. There’s nothing worse than feeling defeated and feeling as though you let something so defenseless down. These senior dogs count on Grey Face Rescue to give them a new life and there’s nothing in this world that I strive for more than giving them a second chance at happiness and the feeling of love and acceptance before their final days.

In late March, I spent endless hours trying to figure out how in the world I was going to raise enough money to help outweigh these vetting costs when in the midst of the madness I remembered my birthday was approaching. I reached out to my rescue friend, Emily Randolph with Furr-Ever Home Rescue who recently launched a fundraiser in honor of her birthday to assist with the outstanding vetting expenses they had for a few senior cats they had recently taken in. I messaged Emily asking if I could steal her idea and like the big-hearted, kind person she is – she said of course. I then launched ‘Bethie’s Birthday Wish’ in hopes of raising money for our seniors. I was looking for 100 people to donate $26 for my 26^th birthday. At first, I figured ANY amount would be wonderful and I had convinced myself that there weren’t very many people out there that give a damn about my birthday but let’s give it a try!

Boy – was I wrong! After 2 weeks of promoting my birthday wish, we have 50+ people donate $26 (10+ donating MORE). We were able to raise $1,927.00 on behalf of my birthday wish for our seniors. Day after day, it was absolutely amazing to see the donations come in and the notes that were included,

“Happy Happy Birthday, girl!! LOVE what you guys are doing with Grey Face Rescue and am SO inspired by your selflessness! You guys are doing so many AMAZING things and I am so blessed to be a small part of it. Thank you for ALL that you do!!”

“Happy Happy Happy Birthday!!! I love what your organization does for the senior dogs!! My dream is to one day walk in an adopt the oldest dog available - Thank you for what you do!”

“You, your family and the GF organization are all doing GREAT things! The love you have for these animals shows in your work. I will be sharing your post! Happy Birthday!”

It was truly an amazing day because of all those who believe in our organization, believe in our mission and believe that our seniors deserve a second chance. These seniors’ dogs can steal our hearts, nearly give us heart attacks, make us shake our heads and bring tears to our eyes but never for a second have I told myself it wasn’t worth it.

No one told me that opening a rescue would be easy – actually, my friend Azure who is the Executive Director of Ruff Start Rescue actually told me it’s really hard and a lot of work. She told me that having a social life was nearly impossible, there will be stress and hard times, and that she had to sacrifice a lot. Of course, I didn’t think she was lying but I did perhaps think she was being a bit drastic. Well, I was wrong. She was being completely honest and upfront.

Since the rescue has opened, I have sacrificed my relationships with friends. It was put a toll on my relationship with my family and mostly it’s put a toll on my body, mentally and physically. My Friday and Saturday nights consists of sitting on the couch with my computer on my lap (and maybe a glass of wine besides me) coming up with new processes and procedures to better our organization, reaching out to businesses for donations and sponsorship opportunities, catching up on the 20+ emails, 10+ Facebook messages and 50+ Facebook notifications that I receive daily. There is ALWAYS work to be done with the rescue.

One thing is for sure though, I absolutely LOVE this rescue. There is nothing in this world that I would rather be doing then dedicating my life to helping these senior dogs live their remaining years in forever loving homes. I’ve learned so much since this rescue has opened. I’ve learned a lot about myself, my relationships with friends and family. I’ve learned a LOT about dogs, especially seniors. Most importantly, I learned that there are a lot of people just like me out there who have the same passion for these senior dogs as I do.

I am so grateful for the extraordinary team that is behind me every step of the way. To think there are individuals out there that love dogs as much as me, want to dedicate endless amount of hours to these dogs and share my passion for the seniors in need of a second chance. My family has recently endured some hardships and without a question, these amazing people have been there for me. I cannot thank them enough for their hard work, determination and endless amount of effort to make this organization the best ever but I can’t thank those individuals who have helped me overcome the last couple days.

Last but not least, I can’t thank the community, my friends, my family and those I have never encountered in my life for your generous donation that has helped save the dogs we have dedicated our life to. Your donation has help overcome and outweigh the enormous vetting expense that has left me frantic. Because of you, I can finally sleep without worry and can be relieved from the feeling of defeat as Grey Face Rescue can move forward and continue to save seniors but giving them a second chance at life and a place to call home. Thank you.

Rescuing Across Country

This past weekend, Grey Face Rescue & Retirement teamed up with the folks at Happy Ending Rescue in Waco, Texas to transport 9 of their dogs the 1,000+ miles across country.

Happy Ending Rescue is a dog rescue located in Hewitt, TX. Happy Endings opened its doors in 2006 with the goal of rehoming large breed dogs, specifically Rottweilers and Pitbulls. Unfortunately, due to insufficient funds, Happy Endings Rescue will be closing their doors in March which leave many dogs homeless with the only choice to be transferred to their local shelter. Happy Endings Rescue made an emergency Facebook page seeking rescues to take a majority of their dogs and one way or another – Grey Face was contacted.

Our Intake Manager, Elise Lieser called me and surprisingly she wasn’t crying because a special senior is pulling at her heart strings. She calmly said, “I’m going to ask you something, and it’s kind of crazy.” Mind you, we’ve been open for less than a year and our ducks just don’t line up in a row quite yet so her opening statement was very  frightening. She told me all about the rescue, stated that they were closing their doors due to insufficient funds and they don’t want anyone to judge or be disrespectful, we just need to find homes for their dogs. Obviously, I had a few questions like how the heck would these dogs get here? But Elise had it covered. I told her if she can find transportation, guarantee the dogs are vaccinated, fixed and ready to go then why not!

Elise was quick to start posting multiple dogs on our Dogs Needing Foster Facebook group. At this point, we failed to communicate this cross-country rescue to the rest of our team who suddenly came out of the woodwork in a panic (rightfully so). We gave a brief overview of this very large rescue mission to the team and began moving forward. Sherry, our Foster Manager (who by the way, is a SAINT) started to put together the ever so fast moving pieces while adding new team members to our Fostering Team (did I mention Sherry was the ONLY volunteer handling our fostering at this time? Yep, she’s a saint). She was stress… to say the least but I made sure to supply the beer on our recent Wednesday meetings which have now become Beer Wednesdays!

Long story short, we found long-term and short-term fosters for all 9 dogs. The folks at Happy Ending Rescue showed up at 7:00 PM exactly with all 9 dogs in tow. Our team, the fosters and volunteers waited patiently outside the van looking at our new temporary house guests.

Stella was one of the first out the door and she was SO shy. Johnny B walked out with a member of their rescue who spent a few minutes one on one with the big boy as they had a close relationship. Oliver came out like a bat out of hell! Franklin and Mighty were lifted out of the vehicle as their porky bodies weren’t ready for the steep jump. Karlee was quickly uploaded and warmed with a blanket by her new foster mommy. Ginny was nervous but warmed up quickly with her foster parents. Casey was one of the first to come out of the van as well and she was quickly placed in her vehicle to head to her new foster home. Last but not least, Sandman the GREAT made his way out of the vehicle and with his foster parents (who have one other Grey Face Foster).

All dogs received an exam from the wonderful Dr. Bea Winkler and our Vetting Manager, Sherin. They both did a phenomenal job assessing the dogs (although some were pretty amped up).

Thank you to the amazing fosters and volunteers that made this incredible experience worthwhile. Most importantly, thank you Happy Endings Rescue for not only driving across country but for donating kennels, food, medication and more. We will never be able to thank you enough for your great doings. We wish we had more time to spend with ya’ll (my attempt to reenact their southern accent). Until next time, Texas – we will keep you updated!